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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25030180">Catra vs. Zuko: The Redemption Arc</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese/pseuds/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese'>StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Analysis, Catra (She-Ra) Redemption, Character Analysis, No beta we die like mne, Not a fic, Zuko Redemption</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:14:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,606</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25030180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese/pseuds/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which I go over the redemption arcs of Zuko (ATLA) and Catra (She-Ra) and discuss the merits of each.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Catra vs. Zuko: The Redemption Arc</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>(Tl;dr at the bottom, as always)</p><p>Hello there! I’m back to ruin everyone’s fun all over again.</p><p>This time, I wanted to write about redemption arcs (again) because of something I mentioned in a previous analysis. As you can see from the title, I decided I wanted to examine the respective arcs of Zuko from Avatar: the Last Airbender and Catra from She-Ra. (It is a little unfair to compare Catra’s redemption to Zuko’s. I liked her arc in She-Ra, and I think it holds up well, but when compared to Zuko’s arc… yeah, this is going to be an unfair essay.)</p><p>I’ve said this before, but a redemption arc is really, really hard to do right, which is why Zuko’s is particularly impressive. I personally believe that it was handled really well, and it is more or less common knowledge among Avatar fans that Zuko’s redemption arc is one of the best in fiction. Whereas Zuko starts the show as one of the primary antagonists, it is quickly established that he is far from the worst person the Fire Nation has to offer. </p><p>In the first season, the audience can see that Zhao is obviously the worse of the two, and thinks nothing of killing a spirit and upsetting the balance of the world just so that he can win. In the second and third season, Azula is the Big Bad. Aside from the first few episodes, Zuko is not portrayed as the biggest threat to the Gaang, and even in those episodes, he suffers so many pratfalls, it’s difficult to take him seriously as a villain (which is necessary both because this is a children’s show and because Zuko needs to seem sympathetic for a redemption arc to actually work). </p><p>As early as episode 7 of the first season, Zuko demonstrates a few redeeming qualities: in one of my favorite Zuko moments, when he has the chance to either go after Aang or his uncle in ‘Winter Solstice, Part 1: The Spirit World’, he chooses to go after his uncle. The audience is also told early on that Zuko’s determination to capture the Avatar doesn’t come from a place of malice, but from a desperation to be recognized as a good son. As a result, the audience is sympathetic towards Zuko, setting up his redemption arc in the next couple of seasons (that sympathy is also what made Zuko’s betrayal in ‘The Crossroads of Destiny’ so agonizing– not only was Zuko betraying Katara and Iroh, he was betraying the audience, as well).</p><p>In addition, Zuko is treated as a deuteragonist in Aang’s story, and even as he gets closer to capturing the Avatar, the audience can’t help but root for him, just a little bit, especially after episode 12 of season 1: The Storm. This is the episode where the audience sees how Zuko received his scar, and it is told alongside Aang’s story, wherein he tells Katara how he fled from the Airbenders after finding out that he was the Avatar and would thus be taken away from Gyatso. </p><p>Catra is less relatable. Unlike Zuko, her villainy doesn’t come from a drive to be accepted, but rather a drive to win. In this aspect, she’s more like Zhao than Zuko. Although Zuko starts off seeming like the Big Bad of the season, it is slowly revealed that he isn’t actually that bad, especially in comparison to other antagonists. Ergo, Zuko is never the most evil person on the show, and therefore has the potential for a believable redemption. However, Catra is the opposite. She starts the season seeming relatively harmless, joking around with Adora, terrified of mice, and generally appearing to be happy-go-lucky (or as happy-go-lucky as you can get in the Horde, anyway). However, she descends into villainy, to the point where she tries to destroy the world, in a move that not even Hordak would have wanted to do, had he known what the consequences would be (or so Entrapta believed). </p><p>The season three finale, as an audience member, was hard to come back from, and I’m saying this as a Catra fan. I know that Catra was at a low point, but the second she tazed Entrapta and had her sent to Beast Island, specifically because Entrapta wanted to stop the end of the world, she demonstrated that she was capable of selfish and destructive actions, perpetuating the cycle of abuse that Shadow Weaver began. Both Catra and Zuko were abused, and chose to deal with this in different ways. While Zuko decides that he is not going to let his father hurt anyone else, Catra uses her pain as an excuse to inflict pain on others.</p><p>Another difference between them is that Zuko doesn’t feel a need to be more powerful than Azula. Both Catra and Zuko had to compete for affection while they were growing up (Catra with Adora and Zuko with Azula), and, again, they react to this differently. I don’t recall Zuko ever being shown to explicitly resent Azula, despite being pitted against her in his father’s eyes. He knows it is his father’s fault. Catra, however, blames Adora for their (admittedly horrible) shared childhood, when it is actually Shadow Weaver’s and Hordak’s faults.</p><p>Even so, for either of their arcs to happen at all, both needed a guide. Zuko had Uncle Iroh, and Catra had Scorpia. However, in order for Zuko and Catra to move on with their respective arcs, they needed their staunchest supporters to take a step back in order to redeem themselves on their own terms. Anything else would seem cheap. If Zuko had helped the Gaang because Uncle Iroh told him to, it wouldn’t have been all that impactful. Zuko, the guy who chased the Avatar for two and a half seasons and who was indirectly responsible for his death at the end of season 2, needed to be the one to swap sides, not the tea-loving old man who was more or less on the Gaang’s side the whole time anyway. </p><p>Meanwhile, Scorpia’s betrayal, Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio’s desertion, and Double Trouble’s speech forced Catra to confront who she had become and proved to her that her actions did, in fact, have consequences. Double Trouble’s speech is, I think, Catra’s version of ‘Zuko Alone’, and, just like Zuko at that point in his arc, she becomes more of an antihero. When she has the chance to let Prime destroy the world at the end of season 4, she puts herself at risk to stop it, simultaneously saving Glimmer’s life, a sharp contrast to her choices in the season 3 finale. However, she doesn’t actually save Glimmer until she realizes that she can save Adora, too.</p><p>Catra is, for the majority of the show, selfish. She doesn’t care what the consequences are, so long as she gets what she wants. Her first selfless act on the show would be saving Glimmer and letting Adora go. She believes that she is most likely going to die, and Adora will remember her as a monster who once tried to destroy the world. She doesn’t try to argue her case or profess her undying love to manipulate Adora’s last memory of her (*cough*Shadow Weaver*cough*). She just sends Glimmer through the teleporter, and (finally) apologizes to Adora, accepting her fate and redeeming herself in the process.</p><p>I’ve written before about how redemption in death bothers me, but this lines up (more or less) with what the audience knows about Catra: she’s selfish, and at this moment, above all else, she wants Adora to survive, and unlike previous moments, she isn’t too concerned about her own survival at this point, making this first selfless act, paradoxically enough, selfish.</p><p>(However, like I mentioned earlier, even though Zuko is the king of redemption, I still think that Catra’s arc is pretty good. Even though she went to a dark place and did terrible things, she was able to come back from that and eventually fight beside Adora instead of against her. I like that she apologized to Entrapta, although I felt that Adora deserved a more heartfelt apology, and Catra should have apologized to Glimmer and Scorpia, too. I know she tried to apologize to Scorpia, but let’s be honest, the middle of a battle probably wasn’t the best time. Zuko had to struggle to be accepted, which made his arc feel authentic, but Catra’s felt a little more rushed, like it was something to get out of the way so that Catradora could happen.)</p><p>At the end of the day, even though Catra’s arc was rushed and a little hard to believe at times (especially when nobody seemed mad or even annoyed about Catra opening the portal and nearly killing them all), I suppose the most important thing was that it was entertaining. I know that that sounds callous, and I know that I just spent over 1,000 words nitpicking, but I was genuinely invested in her arc, just like I was with Zuko’s. Even though it doesn’t <i>quite </i> measure up to one of the best redemption arcs in fiction, I still had a great time watching her grow as a person (or cat-person, I guess), and even as I watched in horror as she kept making terrible choice after terrible choice, I still couldn’t help but root for her, just like with Zuko.</p><p>Tl;dr: Catra’s redemption arc was messy and not as well done as Zuko’s, but both shows do a good job with showing the villain’s side of the story and making them sympathetic, which is perfect redemption arc territory.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It's currently past midnight where I live, so sorry if this is disjointed or repetitive.<br/>Tell me what you think in the comments! :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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